Iwato Trainer
by White Gryphon
Summary: The story of a young girl and her journeys through the Pokemon World.


1 Iwato Trainer  
  
By Sailor Jupiter  
  
Began 8/29/2001  
  
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Once upon a time, not too very long ago, there was a young girl whose name was Amefuri. She had long, fiery red hair that spiraled down from her head in random curls, which glistened like gold in the sunlight. Her eyes were of the deepest emerald green. Her skin, however, was very pale, for she spent very little time in the sun. Everywhere she went she always wore a black rattail cord, on which hung a bronze medallion bearing a triskele, around her neck.  
  
Amefuri lived with her family, the Umini family, in a city called Sperrylite City. Sperrylite was a city known for its metals industry, and had several factories within the city limits where steel was produced. The city stood bordered on the north by blue ocean and on the south by green conifer forest.  
  
Sperrylite City was one of the many cities in a country known as Iwato. In relation to the other known countries in the world of Pokémon, Iwato was located south of Johto and southwest of Kanto. Iwato was recognized by its towering mountains to the south, its long, rocky coastline to the north, and for all of its verdant coniferous forests in between. The weather was usually cool and wet, for the ocean breezes coming from the north brought a lot of rain to the countryside. For the people of Iwato, it was a rare pleasure to have a long period of nothing but sunshine.  
  
Now, while the Pokemon League Gym Challenge in Johto was in its prime, Iwato was only budding as a location for this special event. While the Kanto and Johto Leagues had rare and unusual pokémon to give to new trainers, the Iwato League had to give out pokémon that were bred at special centers; one in the mountains, a second one on an island off the north coast, and a third one situated in the middle of the forest. These breeding centers were glad to contribute a pokémon each at the start of each League season.  
  
This story takes place at the beginning of a new season, in the twentieth year since the establishment of the Iwato League. The young girl, Amefuri, had joined several other aspiring young people in taking an exam towards earning a pokémon training license. Anyone who passed the exam could register for a trainer's license, but something special was in store for the top three scorers…  
  
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Amefuri lay in bed, her arms crossed behind her head, looking up at the ceiling. She could hardly sleep, she was so excited. It was like tomorrow morning was Christmas Day.  
  
Feeling anxious, she sat up and climbed out of bed, tiptoeing over to her desk, on which lay an envelope with a gold border around it. Turning on her desk lamp, she quietly removed the envelope's contents, spreading a single sheet of paper out on her desk. The paper bore a letterhead with a pokéball motif, and had a watermark of the same symbol in the background. Like the envelope, the letter itself was also bordered in gold. Amefuri silently read the letter's message:  
  
Dear Ms. Umini,  
  
Congratulations! Due to your achieving one of the three highest marks on our league acceptance exam, you have been chosen to receive your starting pokémon from one of the three breeding centers in Iwato. A pokémon from each of these centers has already been chosen, and is waiting in reserve at the laboratory of Professor Maple in Solder Town. This town has been recognized as the official starting place for the Iwato League Gym Challenge.  
  
Enclosed in this envelope, you should find a railway pass. This pass may be used for a one-way trip to Solder Town aboard the Mount Opal Express. The train will leave for Solder on Thursday, September the Twelfth, at nine o'clock in the morning. All trainers are required to bring a backpack and personal identification. You will be receiving your license after you have registered your starting pokémon at Professor Maple's laboratory.  
  
Once again, we commend you on your efforts. Good luck on your journey!  
  
The Pokémon League  
  
Amefuri carefully folded the letter and placed it back inside the envelope. Turning around, she kneeled down to inspect her backpack, which stood at the foot of her bed. The pack was brand-new and made of durable gray and green fabric, with a large pocket in the front as well as one on each side, with a thick plastic clasp on each pocket to protect the contents. A patch was sewn onto the largest pocket and bore the symbol of the Iwato league, which was a snow-capped mountain surrounded by pine trees. Amefuri unzipped the large pocket and placed the envelope inside, then checked to make sure that her identification card was also inside the pocket. Quietly zipping the pocket closed, she turned off the desk lamp and climbed back in bed, pulling the sheets over her.  
  
Amefuri had worked very hard to earn such a high score on the League exam. Since she first learned about pokémon, she had an urge to learn as much as she could about them. At the age of ten, an illness had prevented her from getting a pokémon license. She could have registered without even taking a test, since the youngest trainers went through a special training program.  
  
That year, on her birthday, her parents had bought her a computer with an Internet browser. Since then, she stayed up long hours on her computer, browsing the Internet for information about pokémon. By the time she was going to high school, she had memorized the names, numbers, types, and some of the attacks and locations of most of the known pokémon. She even entered role-playing games in chat rooms, playing the character of a wild pokémon, so that she could try and see what it was like to be a pokémon. Her fellow role-players thought she did rather well, for someone who wasn't a pokémon.  
  
By the time she turned eighteen, she felt she was ready to enter the Pokémon League. After graduating from high school, she sent an application form to the League Headquarters at the Indigo Plateau. A few days later, a letter came back with instructions and directions to a place where she could take an admission exam.  
  
Amefuri remembered the day when she stepped off the bus and through the front entrance of the large, silver building. All sorts of people were walking around, getting information on where to go and what to do. She walked up to the front desk and got directions to the room where she was to take the test. Thanking the woman and picking up a sharpened pencil, she headed off down the hall toward her room.  
  
There were several other people in the room with her, all sitting in desks that were lined up against the walls. Amefuri picked up a form packet at the front of the room and sat down in a vacant desk. Quietly tearing open the packet and opening the enclosed test booklet to page one, she studied the first question on the exam:  
  
For what purpose is a Potion used?  
  
Curing a status ailment  
  
Restoring power points  
  
Restoring health points  
  
Raising the level of a pokémon by one  
  
Amefuri circled the third answer and moved on. Each  
  
question on the exam seemed to be just as hard as the first one, and she was glad that she had studied so much. She was through with the test in about a half an hour, and left the room to turn it in to the woman at the front desk. Leaving the building through the automatic glass doors, she felt rather confident.  
  
Amefuri lay in her bed, looking at a poster of a Clefairy on the ceiling. Tomorrow she was going to start her pokémon journey for the first time. The night before she had left for bed, her parents had thrown a party in her honor. All of her friends came and brought gifts. Amefuri didn't have very many friends, but she was grateful of those few people who supported her. Her friends brought her a pokégear, a new backpack, and an official Iwato League patch. As an added bonus, her friends had entered their phone numbers into the pokégear's cell phone.  
  
The new backpack now stood at the foot of her bed, the League patch sewn on. Her pokégear was attached to the handle so she could remember where it was when she was ready to leave the next morning.  
  
Amefuri sighed and rolled over in bed. She was finally going to start her very own pokémon journey. All of her hard work had finally paid off, and she knew she was really going to enjoy being able to catch and train pokémon for her very own.  
  
Overcome by the excitement, she closed her eyes and drifted off into a dream of dancing Clefairy.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The shrill ringing of an alarm clock interrupted Amefuri's dream. Her eyes still closed, she reached over and smacked the small pokéball-shaped clock into snooze mode, then rolled over and pulled the covers over her head.  
  
Almost immediately afterward, she sat up with a start, accidentally knocking her pillows off her bed.  
  
"Aah! I almost forgot! I gotta get ready!"  
  
Amefuri scampered out of bed in a flash, struggling to pull off her nightclothes on her way to the closet. Throwing open the closet door, she stood back and looked at all the different shirts, pants, and jackets that were crammed on the single rack. Filing through her available clean clothing, she pulled out a royal purple T-shirt, a dusky gray fleece tech- vest, and a pair of dark blue denim jeans. Throwing the clothes on her bed and slamming the closet door shut, she hastily took off whatever clothing she was still wearing and started putting on the clean clothes.  
  
Afterwards, she ran into the vanity room and started putting on her makeup. She was just getting finished putting on her eye shadow when she heard her mother call:  
  
"Amefuri! I'm glad you're up, saves me the trouble of having to come up and get you! Breakfast is ready when you are!"  
  
"Thanks, Mom! I'll be down in a minute!"  
  
Amefuri took her time powdering. She wanted to look as perfect as she could on the day she got her pokémon trainer's license and first pokémon. She didn't know anything about the other two people who were also going to Solder for their license and pokémon, much less if they were going to be boys or girls, but she still wanted to look presentable to them and anyone else who was going to be there today.  
  
After applying the necessary perfume, she walked back into her room, grabbed her pack and pokégear, and then ran down the stairs and into the dining room. Her father, a dark-haired man with a beard, was already sitting at the table, and as Amefuri walked in he looked up and smiled.  
  
"Hey there! Slow down, you've got plenty of time. Anyway, if you keep rushing around like that you won't enjoy your breakfast. Your mother fixed her special pancakes for someone who's starting off on her very first pokémon journey today!"  
  
Amefuri smiled and blushed, setting her pack on the floor next to her chair and her pokégear on the table, then pulling back a chair and sitting down at the table across from her father. She was the first one in her family to take on the responsibilities of a pokémon trainer. She had thought that her parents would pressure her about this, who had pressured her before to get through high school. To her surprise, however, they had told her that it would be no sweat. Amefuri then believed that maybe they had seen her potential for success through her performance at her studies, and had concluded that such an undertaking as training pokémon would not be so much as a challenge for her. She certainly hoped so.  
  
The rest of that part of the morning was spent talking about the events taking place later in the day, as well as discussing local affairs and enjoying the banana-flavored pancakes. After putting her dishes in the sink, Amefuri walked over to her mother, who was also red-haired although shorter than her, and gave her a big hug.  
  
"Thanks so much for your support, Mom. Thanks for getting me through school by pushing me to do my best. If it weren't for you and Dad, I would probably still be in Algebra class."  
  
Amefuri stepped back and smiled at her mother. Her mother smiled back and kissed her youngest child on the cheek.  
  
"And I thank you for being such a sweet daughter. If it weren't for you, I don't know how I would ever get that front lawn mowed."  
  
Amefuri's mother laughed, a tear rolling down her cheek.  
  
"Well, now my little Amefuri is leaving on her first pokémon journey. We must tell you that we will miss you a lot. Please promise to write or call us whenever you get the chance."  
  
"I will, Mom. I promise."  
  
Amefuri and her parents soon left the house for the train station. The weather outside was cool and somewhat moist; the sun shone dimly through a gray, overcast sky, casting a pale light down on Amefuri's surroundings. The station wasn't very far to walk to, since it was just a few blocks away from the house.  
  
As the three traveled down the sidewalk towards the station, Amefuri looked up at the steel mill that stood up tall from the city's skyline. The mill had come to represent Sperrylite, being a famous production center for steel and other metals. The city, along with most other cities in Iwato, also had a Pokémon Gym—a place for local trainers to visit and train their pokémon, as well as earn a badge by defeating the gym leader, who was the most skilled trainer in Sperrylite. The young man who ran the Sperrylite City Gym had come to be known as a type master, quite possibly the best one of his chosen type in Iwato. Amefuri couldn't wait until the day she would return to Sperrylite prepared enough to take him on.  
  
Finally, the three arrived at the train station. Amefuri carefully slipped her arms through the straps of her pack, then unrolled the lanyard cord on her pokégear and placed it around her neck. The device dangled just a few inches below her medallion.  
  
Pulling the train ticket from her pocket, she turned to her parents. Her mother stepped up and hugged her again.  
  
"Now… are you sure you don't want us to come with you to Solder? Your father and I had borrowed money from the bank to buy a pair of extra tickets, just in case you changed your mind."  
  
"No, mother, it's alright. I'd like to go by myself this time."  
  
  
  
Amefuri's mother smiled, and nodded her head.  
  
"I see. You go ahead. Take care of yourself, now, hear?"  
  
"Yes, Mom. I will. You be sure and take care of Dad, now!"  
  
Amefuri giggled, turned and ran towards the station, looking back at her parents and waving good-bye. It would be the last time she would see them in a very long while. After all, being a pokémon trainer sometimes means being away from those you care about and love. Separation is one way of building strength.  
  
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End file.
